Safari’s Little Secret: the Amber Season
Travel to Botswana, Zimbabwe or Zambia in October and November and you’ll experience one of the year’s most compelling episodes. It’s the end of the dry season: thorn trees are bare; the grass is golden brown. The leaves of mopane trees hang orange and lifeless, the hot air is filled with red dust, and both sunrise and sunset burn the sky – it’s the Amber Season.
Amber Season Zambezi – low water levels mean more relaxed water activities.
Hot, dry and dusty? Surely a time to avoid?! Not if you want to see the African bush at its most raw, at its most primal, at its most desperate. With water and food sources at a premium, wildlife is concentrating in increasing numbers at the remaining waterholes and riverbanks. Many animals are also dependent on the greenery that surrounds them. Tens of thousands of elephants and giant herds of buffalo crowd the Chobe River, for example, just as they do at the Zambezi and the fringes of the Okavango Delta. Sunset heralds large flocks of birds such as sandgrouse at water and then darkness brings thirsty nocturnal visitors – hyenas, big cats, perhaps rhinoceros.
Animals like buffalo need to drink twice a day, driving them to the last water sources.
With all this concentration of animals at water sources, it’s no surprise to discover that Amber Season is especially good for predator-prey interaction. Lions and leopards ambush antelope at the water’s edge; wild dogs and cheetah launch sudden raids across dry floodplains and grasslands. But it’s not just the big predators in action: wait at a waterhole for a while and the smaller players appear: jackals, the smaller cats such as serval, and raptors such as eagles, hawks and falcons.
Bottom line: if you are looking to see a kill – or at least an attempt at one – then Amber Season is one of your best bets.
Lions take advantage of wildlife concentrations by ambushing their prey at water.
And if photography is part of your safari experience, then Amber Season will suit you. There is a great diversity of wildlife clustered around water sources, and the low, thin dry season vegetation makes it easier to see and photograph them. There’s lots of movement in the cooler early hours – lions following buffalo, wild dogs getting ready to hunt, antelope risking a quick drink – and both sunrise and sunset yield a wonderful golden-amber light for those critical times in photography. Birders will find that several migrant species have arrived to augment the resident bird list, and the lack of foliage on many trees means that identification and photography of birds is easier.
Amber Season is hot but there are always ways to cool down naturally in Africa.
Amber Season will also suit you if you are looking for a top safari experience without the peak season prices: Amber Season coincides with shoulder season for Southern Africa. Lying between the July/August peak season and Christmas, Amber Season can offer cheaper accommodation rates as well as special deals – stay for four nights and pay for three, for example.
October and November also coincide with a great time for Cape Town: the Cape’s rainy winter season is almost at an end and summer is on the way but without the big crowds and bigger prices of Christmas time. It’s great hiking weather and there are still whales and flowers to see.
October & November are two of the best months for travel to Cape Town, especially for nature-lovers & photographers.
So what are the drawbacks to Amber Season? For one thing, it is hot. And properly hot – easily 35°C (95°F) during the day and not much cooler at night. You won’t be bothered much by mosquitoes however – it’s too dry for them – and the occasional shower of rain brings relief.
Rain? Yes, as much as October and November are the end of the Dry Season, they are also the start of the Rainy Season. Arriving in the form of random, towering thunderheads, Amber Season rain does little to affect your safari experience and in fact may enhance it. Termite swarms, to take one example, are triggered by the rain and attract many small predators. In any event, the rains don’t really get going until Christmas time, and so most lodges are still open with their activities available.
A hot & dusty day in Africa has its rewards: you are guaranteed a stunning sunset.
Amber Season – it’s recommended for experienced safari travellers looking for a new aspect to a safari; you’ll need to be able to deal with hot weather and a battered and brown natural landscape – this is the most difficult time of year for the ecosystem to deal with – but the rewards are significant.
The heat and aridity may make it difficult for families with younger children but also bear in mind that most lodges have a swimming pool for those down-time moments. Some lodges have air-conditioned suites – certainly worth thinking about – and you’ll find that care is taken by your hosts to ensure as much comfort as possible.
